Ad Roundup: RTB spending up, partnership to up engagement

This week, data out from a leading advertising exchange underlines the importance of budget control and real time bidding. Meanwhile, a new partnership should also help advertisers up the engagement level of their lists.

First, new data out from Nexage signals a change in the advertising ecosystem: namely that about half the spend on the Nexage Exchange is now via Real Time Bidding (RTB). The company predicts steady growth continuing for programmatic buying as advertisers try to keep budgets under control.

RTB spending increased three-fold in the first quarter of 2013; over the past 18 months programmatic buying increased from 13% to 50% on the Exchange.

"We all know about the increased role of programmatic markets across mobile advertising, and the tailwinds that it is creating for RTB," said Ernie Cormier, CEO and president of Nexage. "But our 50 percent RTB share achievement tells a broader, simpler, and more meaningful story. Publishers and buyers are realizing powerful business results on the Nexage Exchange. They see the direct link between our superior technology and those results--and they have increasing confidence about building their business on our technology."

Meanwhile Spredfast and Brandwatch have partnered to help brands up the engagement factor of their campaigns. Through the partnership Brandwatch and Spredfast will integrate their products, giving brands a more complete look at the social advertising space.

"With our Brandwatch integration, not only are our joint customers now pulling in more conversations from more places across the web, we are empowering them to identify, prioritize, and engage with these conversations in a scalable way," said Rod Favaron, Spredfast CEO. "Doing so from one platform will continue to enable customers to achieve great business results through the use of social media."

The Brandwatch social monitoring platform and Spredfast's social management platform should help brands act on social data in real time.